In the telecommunications industry, multimedia communication services, such as video share, may not be invoked by a user if the user is unaware that the service is supported by other user devices. Service providers may enable user capability exchange, which enables a user device to signal its capabilities to other user devices. The user device may display capabilities of other user devices associated with the user's contacts, after receiving capabilities information from the contacts' user devices, when the user views the contacts.
One method of discovering device capabilities is by pulling information from another user's device using peer to peer signaling, or by pulling information from a core network server (e.g. a Presence Server). For example, a first user device may send a session initiation protocol (SIP) options message to a second user device, where the SIP options message provides capabilities information associated with the first user device and asks for the second user device's capabilities. The second user device may respond with a SIP options message that identifies the second user device's communication capabilities. The capabilities may then be displayed on the first user device (e.g., in a contact list on an electronic address book). Pulling information from other user devices has the significant disadvantage of requiring the transmission of a large number of SIP options messages between devices. Further, it may not be known when any particular device's capabilities change. The signaling involved to implement such capability exchange may significantly burden a service provider.